ANNUAL REPORT 2018 “Helping women to help themselves” A woman saving group member in Kralanh district, Siem Reap with her dragon fruit plantation 1 INTRODUCTION National machinery and mechanisms are in place to promote gender equality in Cambodia; however, we cannot say gender equality is a reality. The majority of women who live in rural areas still lack access to basic necessities of life, with all girls and women facing unequal access to healthcare, education, employment and political participation. Violence is a lived reality for a large percentage of the population, especially women, and post-conflict issues such as instability in the family, diminished human capital, and poverty impact on women’s enjoyment of their human rights. Cambodia, emerging from years of intense violence and suffering, is still one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, despite huge increases in development and the economy. Implementation of recently updated laws and international protocols is irregular, due in part to a lack of training and education about the law at various levels. The work of CWCC in education about the law is important. It is still unclear how the planned NGO law will affect the work of CWCC. Poverty is a crosscutting issue in our work. Lack of access to education and resources impacts women and girls the most, and these effects have only been exacerbated by the global financial crisis, with an accompanying loss in a huge amount of factory jobs. In addition, the implementation of new taxation laws is expected to bring increased poverty, which leads to increases in such high-risk choices as migration for work. The completion of the Mekong Sub Region Economic corridors will bring increased trade opportunities for Cambodia, but the elimination of borders is expected to increase human trafficking, which is still one of the most serious issues facing Cambodia. CWCC works closely with its supportive donors, and is grateful for their support, and is mindful of shifts and trends in donor funding. CWCC focuses its intervention and services on alleviating violence and empowering survivors, particularly related to the areas of domestic violence, rape, sexual abuses and exploitation, trafficking in women and children, and equal access to girl’s education. OUR APPROACH 2 OUR TARGET AREAS - Phnom Penh: Regional Office with Safe Shelter - Siem Reap: Regional Office with Safe Shelter - Banteay Meanchey: Regional Office with Safe Shelter - Kampong Thom: Regional Office OUR STRATEGIES Our Vision is women and girls living in peace, security and dignity and enjoying their universal human rights. Our Mission is to empower women and girls to claim their universal human rights to personal security and to equal participation in community, civil economic, social and cultural life. Our Overall Goal is to contribute to the empowerment of vulnerable women and girls through protection, prevention and advocacy in order to promote a peaceful, gender-equitable and compassionate society. Our Core Values Dignity: All persons regardless of their social status, gender, disability or other differences are living with dignity. Justice: All human beings should enjoy equal access to policies and practices that seek equitable distribution of power, resources and opportunities. Accountability: Resources and responsibilities for decision making should be used in ways that are transparent and answerable to donors, constituents and communities. OUR PROGRAMS The overall goal will be realized through the four strategic objectives. Strategic Objective 1: Prevention Program Strategic Objective 2: Protection Program Strategic Objective 3: Advocacy Program Strategic Objective 4: Organizational Development 3 1. PREVENTION PROGRAM 1.1 Community Organizing To educate and empower community members, duty bearers, community leaders, and parents to alter their attitudes and behaviors in regard to human rights for women and children is one of CWCC’s strategies in addressing gender-based violence in Cambodia. The Community Organizing (CO) project provides capacity building to duty bearers including community leaders, local authorities, and police about women human rights, rights of people with disability, gender-based violence (GBV), domestic violence laws, and anti-trafficking laws and raise awareness to community members. In 2018, the project has worked directly with twelve women’s support groups with 180 members, twelve youth groups with 180 members (116 female) and six District Based Multi- Sectoral Networks with 120 members (53 female). The groups have played role as agent for change in their respective community by providing awareness raising to around 5,500 community members of which 65% are women. Among those who received awareness raising, people with disability accounted for five percent. 1.2 Anger Management for Men In 2005 the law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of Victims was passed by the Cambodian government, mandating that local authorities intervene in cases of domestic violence. Despite this, domestic violence is still a major social problem in Cambodia, and, indeed, the rest of the world. The CWCC’s Anger Management for Men Project (AMM) seeks to address this issue by addressing the root causes of domestic violence, thereby not only protecting and empowering the victims of domestic violence in Cambodia, but also increasing awareness and understanding of Cambodia’s domestic violence law among husbands and strengthening the capacity of local authorities to enforce this law. While other NGOs do provide training on Non-Violent Conflict Resolution, their training addresses violence in general. The CWCC’s Anger Management Project is unique in Cambodia in that it tackles domestic violence by dealing directly with its root causes, thus increasing the sustainable prevention of domestic violence, not just protection for its victims. The project has worked directly with 120 male peer educators in providing anger counseling to 150 men who are at risk of violence and awareness raising to 288 community members (213 females) in target province of Siem Reap. Mr. San Lon said that “Nothing is precious than the smile of my wife”. Previously, he had never taken care of his family, he always followed his anger. After received consulting from project, he has better understand and feel ashamed of what he had done. He commits not to follow his past experience, he will try to work hard for his family. Better than that, he volunteers to be a peer educator help to educate other men who face the same experience like him. The project has also facilitated parents to form as interest groups and provide them with Skillful Parenting training, such as being a parent, role and responsibilities, time for me, value, positive discipline, family communication, peaceful families, child protection and family budgeting. Along with the training, the project has built the confidence of these groups and 4 has motivated them to become good parents with respect to Children’s Rights. Currently, there are eight parent interest groups with 185 members (141 females). With increase understanding on skillful parenting, the groups have provided awareness to other community members reached to 415 people (320 females). Along with the parent interest groups, three child support groups have been established with 78 members (50 female) and they have shared what they learnt from the project’s capacity building to 131 friends and villager (89 female). In addition, they consulted with 18 friends (11 females) whom wished to drop out of school. 1.3 Girls’ Access to Education The project has worked in target provinces of Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Banteay Meanchey, to provide scholarship package to vulnerable girls including those from very poor family, experience of violence, and at risk of dropped of school. In 2018, the project has supported scholarship package to 245 girls who range from secondary up to upper secondary school (150 in Siem Reap, 70 in Phnom Penh, and 25 in Banteay Meanchey). The project has collaborated with Local Education Working Group (LEWG) and District Coordination Group (DCG) in selecting girls and providing scholarship support to them. The scholarship package includes school materials, school uniforms, a bicycle, a monthly allowance, fees for extra classes, computer skill training, English lessons, and rice support. These things enabled the scholarship students to access school regularly. Furthermore, 5 residential houses in Siem Reap were arranged for a total of scholarship recipients who live more than 7 kilometers from schools. Girls from poor family are able to go to at school and continue to professional training skill thought scholarship package and network with some vocational training skill. ”[…] to prepare for national examination, I had to attend an extra class… at the time when I need money to pay for my study, I was so stressful. I was about to drop out. Luckily, I received support from scholarship project and that help me to finish high school”, said a former scholarship recipient who currently attend PEPY school. 1.4 Women’s Economic Empowerment The women’s economic empowerment program aims to empower women and girls in the target areas to have improved living conditions with strong social networks so that they are able to overcome financial constraints and reduce vulnerability to all forms of violence. The project has worked with 57 saving groups in 2018 of which 25 in Siem Reap, 20 in Phnom Penh and 12 in Kampong Thom. There are 1,587 members (1,276 female) with 104,581 $USD as their saving in groups. Beside this, the project has supported 33 women group business and 55 women individual business aiming to enable women to have skill and earn income to support themselves and their family. In addition, three federations (2 in Kralanh and 1 in Siem Reap) of Siem Reap Province and three federations of Phnom Penh Capital City (1 in Por Sen Chey, 1 in Prek Pnov, and 1 in Sen Sok) have been function well. The federations have the obligations to facilitate saving groups to function efficiency and effectively.